Adieu to Berlin, hello to Canton
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- February 4, 2024
- 1447
My cats are doing well, considering they did not ask to move. They’ve been prowling around the new house, staking out their territory, crying to go outside. Mostly, they’ve been a little scared but moving past that quickly to curiosity. I’m going to introduce them to the neighborhood a little bit at a time. Maybe they’ll get a brisk walk on the porch.
We moved last Saturday, friends and family arriving ready to work. If we do anything well having a Mennonite background, it’s helping people move. No one complains, and they just pick you and your stuff up and move it to the next town.
Big furniture down to the smallest boxes were maneuvered through tight spaces by willing hands. It’s humbling to move, letting everyone see the amount of coffee cups or pieces of lumber you’ve hoarded. Our biggest insecurities turn to mush in the hands of people who love you. A box spring was moved by way of upstairs door taken off its hinges — picked like a pro by our son — and hoisted up a ladder because it couldn’t make the tight stairway turn — laughing friends making it work.
My family set out a feast for lunch for weary souls with hungry bellies, and I could barely eat because everything felt like so much — a good so much.
My brother-in-law John was helping to move the huge cupboard that has been on my mom’s side of the family, the Stutzman’s, since Jacob C. and Anna Bontrager Stutzman married and built it in the year of our Lord 1860. That’s 164 years old. The weight of those years descended on me as John recalled how many times in the past he had helped to move it for my mom.
The note taped inside the cupboard lists its history and who had it in their keep: Jacob C. Stutzman, David J. Stutzman, Henry D. Stutzman, Mary Stutzman Sundheimer. I will add my name, Melissa Sundheimer Herrera, to this list of the eldest children it passes to. It admonishes that it’s never to be sold, and the pristine condition it’s in — despite its most recent trek to Stark County — tells me it will live on. Well-built pieces always do.
John measured from floor to ceiling, and the two pieces came together with inches to spare — all nearly 8 foot of it. The two pieces had been separated in my other house because the ceilings were lower. Back together again, I can’t wait to fill it with treasures.
I’m sitting at my beloved kitchen table sipping coffee. It’s the first morning I’ve been able to get up early in the four nights we’ve slept here. The gas furnace is purring softly, and I’m wrapped in the inky dawn of my new-to-me kitchen. I don’t know the people who lived here before us, but I know they were long-term owners. I’ve always felt previous owners would leave a vibe or energy in a place they lived and loved in for so long. I would wonder if that’s the case for the house in Berlin we say goodbye to today, the very last day of January. We need to gather a few more things there and close the door fully on that chapter.
But I don’t feel the people who lived here. There is no discernible trace of them at all. Maybe that’s for the best, so we can settle in and spread ourselves fully into this little house built in 1921. I’m excited to do some digging on its history and see what bones we’re resting on, the structure a gorgeous nod to the era it was built in.
Today I am tired, weary of things I must put away and arrange. I long for simplicity, and even though we threw and gave away so much, there’s still more to do. But I have time — there’s no rush. I plan to look at my freshly painted bare walls until I know just what I want to hang. I’m the only one who can rush myself, and I won’t do it. I’m going to let the house speak to me in her own time.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com or find her in the thrift aisles.